(snip)
Explaining that he has ties to the oil industry and that he is still on the fence about fracking, Osbourne explained fluid dynamics to the board while pouring out three cups of the sludgy water that could result from spills or from seeping into the water table.

Referring to earlier testimony, Osbourne said, “So you told me this morning that you would drink this water,” as he indicated the cups.

“So would you drink it? Yes or no?” he asked, only to be met by silence by the stone-faced group before a member explained they wouldn’t be answering any questions.

“Oh, you can’t answer any questions? Well my answer would be ‘no.’ I don’t want this in the water that will travel entirely across this state in three days,” Osborne said. “There is no doubt there will be contamination. There will be spills.”

In the midst of a Senate budget vote-a-rama that Republicans are filling with anti-Obamacare and economy killing votes, Senator Bernie Sanders took the Senate floor and dropped the fact bomb that raising the minimum wage is real job creator.

Video:

Sen. Sanders said, “The simple truth is that in America people working full time should not be living in poverty. Since 1968, the real value of the federal minimum wage has fallen by close to thirty percent, and people all over this country and in state after state on their own have voted to raise the minimum wage. And, by the way, in state after state where the minimum wage has gone up, more jobs have been created. Let us stand today with the tens of millions of workers who are struggling to put food on the table to take care of their families.”

The Sanders amendment to raise the federal minimum wage failed to pass 48-52. The good news for Democrats and the left is that Sen. Sanders fell just three votes short of passage as just a simple majority of fifty-one votes are required to pass budget amendments.

(snip)
Sen. Sanders dropped a dose of reality on Senate Republicans today. If the 52 Republican Senators who voted no really wanted to boost the economy, the first thing they should do is reverse course and support raising the minimum wage.

On Meet the Press this morning, California Governor Jerry Brown told Chuck Todd that Texas Republican Ted Cruz’s recent remarks about global warming make him “unfit to be running” for president.

(snip)
After playing that clip, Todd asked Brown what his response was — and the California governor didn’t mince his words.

“That man betokens such a level of ignorance and a direct falsification of the existing scientific data,” he said. “It’s shocking and I think that man has rendered himself absolutely unfit to be running for office.”

(snip)
“This is a serious matter we’re experiencing in California, as kind of a foretaste,” he said, “but there is no doubt that into the future, we’re going to have more problems.”

In a statement after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today renewed his support for diplomatic efforts by the United States and other world powers to negotiate an agreement to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

“More than a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost us thousands of lives and trillions in treasure and made a difficult situation even worse. Those experiences should reinforce our resolve to make every diplomatic effort to avoid another rush to war,” Sanders said.

“It goes without saying that Iran must not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. It goes without saying that the United States will stand by our long-standing friendship and support for the nation of Israel. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Netanyahu did not offer any serious alternatives to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“At this point, harsher sanctions won’t stop Iran’s nuclear program. Neither would a dangerous resort to military action. The sanctions currently in place have brought Iran to the bargaining table and current negotiations resulted in Iran freezing its nuclear program. And for the past year, Iran has been subject to heightened international inspections. All of those things have made us safer.

“I commend President Obama for his continued cooperation with the United Kingdom, France, China, Germany and Russia to reach a final agreement to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Sanders said.

Sanders did not attend Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress. He had said beforehand that the address, arranged without consultation with the White House, improperly interfered with President Barack Obama’s leading role in charting U.S. foreign policy. With Israeli elections set for two weeks from now, Sanders also said it was inappropriate for any foreign leader to use an appearance before Congress for their own domestic political purposes.

Steve Cohen (D-TN) dipped into American history to deliver a devastating takedown of Rudy Giuliani’s ongoing attempts to show President Barack Obama is insufficiently patriotic.

“Rudy Giuliani questioned how much, or even if, President Obama loves America. Maybe he thinks he loves it 3/5 as much as Giuliani & his pals,” tweeted Cohen, who represents a heavily black district in Memphis.

Cohen, of course, was referring to the infamous Three-Fifths Compromise during the 1787 U.S. Continental Convention, which determined how slaves would be counted when determining population for legislative representation and taxation.

(snip)
Cohen says he is fed up with people even doubting Obama's patriotism.

"He is the commander in chief, he defends our country, he loves our country. It is not even an issue," Cohen says. "It is just absurd."

But conservatives weren't the only ones calling out Cohen. The Washington Post also took him to task for his tweet, arguing it was a "very good demonstration of how not to elevate the political debate with Rudy Giuliani."

The White House announced on Tuesday that 11.4 million people signed up or re-enrolled in health insurance through the federal exchange during the 2015 enrollment period.

On the last day of the enrollment period, on Feb. 15, HealthCare.gov saw its biggest enrollment day ever.

About 7 million people signed up for health insurance during the 2014 enrollment period.

President Obama made the announcement in a video posted on Facebook.

"It gives you some sense of how hungry people were out there for affordable, accessible health insurance. And that’s really the top line message. The Affordable Care Act is working," he said about the 2015 enrollment numbers.